You know what's a shame? That the days are getting shorter. It's not light at 6:30am anymore. Ah well. But Daylight Saving ends the evening of the Halloween Party again, and it's always good to have an extra hour to PAR-TAY!

It's drizzle drizzly (fo shizzle my drizzle) today, but I have to leave my windows open, to air that shit out. We done did some smoking. On the way home from my haircut appointment (a little too short, though I don't not like it, I just don't think my hair is at its Maximum Level of Cuteness, and I need all the help I can get, but hey, whaddaya gonna do) I stopped at the Berlin Farmer's Market and bought one of those ashtrays with the beanbag on the bottom, which I've been meaning to buy for months. It is an amazing invention. On the highway, it stays on my dashboard. My dashboard. Is there a more convenient location in my car in which to ash a cigarette? I don't think so. I need an ashtray, you see, because I don't know how to smoke in a car. I blame this on my having not smoked in high school (and I don't really smoke now, really), though I suppose it could also be attributed to my innate spazziness. I get ash all over my lap; firey butts go out the front window and right in the back one. But no longer!

This has been one amazing weekend, let me tell you. We're going to make it start on Thursday, since we can. Thursday we saw Lewis Black at Rowan, which I went over already. For the purposes of this entry we'll focus on the Good, which was Lewis. He was really amazing and funny and angry. Then on Friday I took a little nap after work, and went over to The House to hang out. A good time was had by all, in the usual fashion. Saturday, after the hair thing (which made me get up early, and that's always welcome on a weekend), Dave and Jeff and I went up to my cousin Little Marty's Pig Roast. It was a long drive; we actually drove up through PA, and then back across the Delaware; Marty lives juuuust on this side of the river. To cross it, we traversed a really neat, really small suspension bridge. It were cute.

The pig roast, man. We were only there for a few hours, which was good for Jeff and Dave, because it meant that they were introduced to a thousand family members, but didn't have to talk to any of them, really. They didn't have horseshoes (!), so we (and my brother) played makeshift bocce with four croquet balls, and a golf ball. Our playing field was a hill, and had some poop on it, and we lost track of the score. We didn't get there til like four, but the pig was still on the spit, turning and turning and looking like a goddamn pig. It's not often you get to see your meal look like the goddamn animal it is. Near the end of the bocce game, my cousin took the pig off and sliced him up. The pig was GOOD. REALLY good. And know what was inside the pig? Bear. Bear meat. Bear meat from a bear my cousin had killed last week up in Maine. The bear was good. It was really gamey-tasting, but not stringy or anything. I certainly preferred the pig, but hey, I've eaten bear, and, you know, you probably haven't. Bear my COUSIN killed. He's a cool hunter, though. He's not an asshole or anything, and he uses every part of the animal, and he hunts with a bow most of the time. He even FISHES with a bow. Isn't that amazing? I mean, you know, refraction and everything, and he FISHES with a bow.

Also there were twenty different kinds of potato and pasta salads, and a huuuuuuge metal steamer filled with corn, about . . . hmm, I don't know, two hundred cobs? Three hundred cobs? It's hard to estimate cobs.

He's also a contractor. So his little house isn't little anymore, and he did it all himself, and good God does it look gorgeous. They also built a barn, only it doesn't really look like a barn, it's so beautiful. The bottom part is like a garage-type area, and he has a motorcycle (which I didn't know he had) and a . . . an old black car that I thought was like a black cab in England, but Mom said no, it's a ______, but I forget already (I didn't know he had that either). There were deer horns ALL over the place in there. And a few heads, and a jackalope, and some mounted fish, and a Canada goose that he got when he was young. I know the story behind the Canada goose. And a workbench with a million tools, I said, "ooh, look, Ma!" because my mom and I love tools.

And the land that Marty and Patti have, it's amazing. It's a big hill, and there's a little stream running through it. And they've put paths all over the place, and benches and whatnot; so it's useable, and there's a place Jeff kept calling the "grotto" where you could sit, but it's not all landscapy and fake looking, y'know?

At six-thirty the four of us booked out of there, just as it was starting to rain. We drove east across New Jersey. Sometimes it was raining REALLY freaking hard, and then it would stop suddenly, like this: rainrainrainrainrainSTOP. Just like that. It was pretty cool, actually. We got to New York okay and I parked somewhat near TImes Square and we walked to Caroline's. We had made dinner reservations, thirteen of us! I had no idea I even HAD that many friends. The food was good, and then we got what was arguably VIP seating. Though it would have been better if they had split the table up, because the people on the far end were far away from the stage and had an awkward viewing agle. Man, and the people at the table next to us were FREAKING FREAKS. OMG. They cheered when somebody said something about "New Jersey", so, you know, damn. All the girls had the same big blonde hair, and the guys were wearing blue shirts and looked big and dumb. And they kept MAKING OUT with each other and it was really weird. And this one guy wouldn't stop pointing at the comedians. Weirdos. Neil is convinced they were rolling.

So the first two comedians were pretty decent, the first more than the second. And then Dane Cook came out and was fucking awesome. Lewis Black was awesome on Thursday, but it's hard to get into it in such a big, brightly-lit place. But the show at the club didn't start til 10:30, and Dane didn't come on til way after that, so everybody was all drunked up. And he was amazing, he was on the whole time, there weren't any slow parts. There were a few bits that sounded familiar, but I haven't been listening to his cd, so I didn't know any bits already. It's remarkable, the difference between good comedians and mediocre comedians. And he came out in a baseball cap and sleeveless T (he looked exactly like Neil, we all said, which meant that he had really really nice arms), and just seemed like . . . like the funny drunk guy at a party, except really fucking funny. It was awesome. And my brother had said previously that all his girl friends wanted to have sex with him (Dane Cook, not my brother), and I thought, "eh," because he's all right, but there's something too angular about his face or his eyebrows or something, but then he came out in person, and, you know, MAN. I mean, I loves me a funny guy anyway, but still. Also I think there's something about seeing someone famous in real life. You're so used to what they look like, they're so familiar, but then when you actually see them, they're real, and they . . . look very handsome. LIKE FOR INSTANCE when I saw JOEL FLEISCHMAN of NORTHERN EXPOSURE on the walk from the parking lot to the club. He was handsome and dressed nicely and walking alone and looking serenely ahead with a weird calm smile on his face, and he was just so good looking! Jeff is like one of the biggest Northern Exposure fans I know, but he was walking ahead of me and right when I saw Joel there was someone kind of between us so I couldn't lunge up and grab him in time, which is a shame. I got really really excited because I knew he would be, which is a lie, because I got really really excited when we saw John Cusack and Jeremy Piven last year, so I guess I'm just a loser that gets really excited to spot celebrities. Oh well! My defense is that they were all good-looking and handsome. Even almost Jeremy Piven.

After the show (and the ri-DIC-ulous bill) the crowd oozed out through the restaurant area. Some dude said to the girl squished in front of me, "he's right over there, you know," and Dane Cook was at the far end signing things for girls. I was mildly excited, but didn't really want to get anything signed (it'd just take up space, and I'm not really an autograph person), but then Kelly and Neil made it to the stairs and I pointed him out and Neil said to Kelly "do you want your picture taken with him?" and she said "YES!" and I said "YES!" because that's different, somehow. Kelly brought him a program to sign, but I didn't, which I sorta felt bad about, but I shook his hand and he's not that tall and we got our picture taken and I have it back already. He wished us both amazing lives. OH I forgot to say one of the coolest things about Dane Cook is that he does The John Linnell Thing, where he stares into the eyes of people in the audience as he's doing his thing, and it makes your heart go aflutter and you think "OMG Dane Cook/John Linnell is totally in love with me and I think he's trying to send me a signal and I'm pretty sure he wants me to meet him backstage after the show!" but then you notice he's doing it all over the crowd but really, that realization doesn't make it seem all that much less special.

Then after the show we all went our separate ways. Earlier in the evening the ATM didn't want to give Dave money, so we were a little tight. When we got to the parking lot, Dave and Jeff were literally out of cash; I had seventeen dollars, and my brother had thirteen, and the parking lot was $30. Yikes. Good thing nothing happened to us on the way out.

Oh, and Times Square? Seriously really very bright. Like daytime, and they don't need streetlights. And the street signs in the vicinity had the numbers lit up with white LED's, which I think is hot shit.

Then we drove back to my parents' to drop off my brother, and then went home, and Dave took over the last half hour because I was dangerously sleepy. Thank you Dave.

THEN on Sunday not that much happened. I woke up mad late (I didn't get to bed til after four), and the Eagles didn't play (they play tonight), so there was no rush. I lost again in fantasy football. I don't think I'll do too well this season; oh well. Hopefully I won't finish dead last, but you never know. So there was football, and drinking, and smoking, and fucking PIGGING OUT on pizza and wings (so much so that I actually wan't hungry for dinner, which is, like, amazing), and then a long nap. And then some more football, and then Lost World on the tiny TV in the kitchen. And I watched Mitch play FFX for a while, which I don't mind doing, it's so pretty. And then bed. And then up, this morning, before it was even light out.